


for purchase, for gravity

by sublime_jumbles



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: (kinda), (vague), Belly Kink, Belly Rubs, Chubby Poe, Comfort Eating, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Nightmares, One Shot, Overeating, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Weight Gain, binge eating, chubby!poe, gotta hit all the relevant tags y'know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-06
Updated: 2016-05-06
Packaged: 2018-06-06 15:55:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6760396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sublime_jumbles/pseuds/sublime_jumbles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Not for the first time, Poe takes stock of himself, standing at the sink of his quarters' tiny kitchenette at three am in the dark, cradling a tub of ice cream, and wonders how he got here.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	for purchase, for gravity

**Author's Note:**

> this is not the star wars fic i planned to write (nor is it the one that ANYBODY asked for) but this is what came out of my hands so??? i hope you enjoy it anyway

Not for the first time, Poe takes stock of himself, standing at the sink of his quarters' tiny kitchenette at three am in the dark, cradling a tub of ice cream, and wonders how he got here.

In a larger sense, he can trace it all the way back to Yavin IV, to his mother's funeral, to a plate pushed into his hands - _eat something, mijo, you'll feel better_ \- but he can't remember specifically how he got here tonight. He remembers a blanketlike terror, the stifling press of nightmare around him, the prickling beneath his skull that comes with the capture dreams now. But his escape from the tangle of Rey and Finn's sleeping forms, the stumbling traipse down the hall ... that's lost in his consciousness, drowned out by fear and frozen treats.

The capture dreams never used to be this bad, this specific. They've always involved some faceless villain who's swept in to menace him, some cloaked, bony-fingered figure straight out of the horror holos that Jess likes. But these, now - the shell that used to be Ben Organa looming above him, reaching into his brain like a grab bag, voice as slimy and cold as the worms Poe used to poke at in his mother's garden - the horror works itself deeper into his chest, slides under his nails and nooses around his throat knowing that that isn't something his tired brain had churned out - that is _real_.

Poe jerks, trying to quell the prickling in his head. He knows it's psychosomatic, that there's no way Ben Organa could reach him from all this way. He digs up a heaping spoonful of ice cream and wraps his mouth around it, trying to white out the panicked spinning of his mind, keeps digging. He drags in a breath, and it catches somewhere between a hiccup and a sob. He realizes that his eyes are wet, his cheeks. _You failed your mission_ , the slimy voice whispers. _You failed the Resistance, you failed everyone you care about._

In his dreams before, he never talked. He let himself be beaten, whipped, bloodied - he never gave up the Resistance. In his dreams now Ben Organa's voice is quiet, but his own voice is loud, rushes in his ears like blood as he hears himself sell out his general, his army, his friends, over and over again. Most nights he jolts awake unsure of which part is more horrifying.

He scoops out bite after bite, gulping them down and wincing at the cold against his teeth. He's desperate for purchase, for gravity to yank him back where he belongs, steady him.

 _Everyone you love right now is safe_ , he tries to reassure himself. _Everyone you love right now is alive. What happened to you is not your fault._

He takes a deep breath, exhales a burp. He palms his stomach absently, firm beneath the softness of his paunch. He's put on a few since his capture, more apt to reach for seconds and nibbles between meals and midnight snacks to assure himself of his safety, to assuage his anxiety. If he stands close to the counter, he can just start to rest his belly on it, lipping over just enough for the surface to offer a little support. He's scarfed down half the tub of ice cream by now; he's done this enough to know that by the time he finishes the other half, he'll have evened out.

He holds the carton close to his face, his hands still shaking a little too much for him to trust himself to bring spoonfuls to his mouth from the level of the counter without making a mess. His stomach is starting to feel stretched out, overfull, and he sips in a couple of breaths, listening to it gurgle. He swallows another mouthful, and his stomach protests with an uncomfortable twinge. His anxiety is beginning to dissipate, the physical discomfort overtaking the distress of the dream.

He's working down the last couple of bites, a dull ache beginning to spread low in his belly, when Finn appears in the doorway of the kitchen, rumpled and sleepy-eyed. "Hey," he says softly. "Are you okay?"

Poe looks up guiltily. Finn's forehead creases.

"I'm okay," Poe mumbles, his free hand creeping to his belly. "Just ... a bad dream."

"Did you...?" asks Finn, nodding to the carton of ice cream. "Wasn't that full earlier?"

Poe ducks his head. His stomach gurgles irritably.

"I couldn't sleep," he says, grateful for the dark, that Finn won't see him flush. Embarrassment flusters Finn, and he doesn't want to put that on him. "It helped."

"You could have woken us," says Finn, cocking his head. "We would have taken care of you."

He knows they would have. He knows they'd bend over backwards for him, as he would for them. But they shouldn't have to, he thinks. Months after being captured, he shouldn't still be getting torn apart by nightmares. He should have learned how to handle this by now. He's adjusting to everything else that manic week dealt him: the subtraction of half his fleet, of his friends, of a significant chunk of his self-confidence; and the addition of Rey and Finn, of the consequent resurgence of his belief in the good of the universe. He's adjusting to living as part of their triad, adjusting to sharing his bed with two people, adjusting to their learning curves when it comes to civilian life. He thinks he's handling the rest of it pretty well. It's just _this_ that he can't shake.

"I didn't want to bother you," he says to Finn, crossing his arms over his stomach. He's fast approaching the heavy, sleepy stage of his anti-anxiety ritual.

Finn holds out his hand in response. "Come on," he says, reeling Poe in and tucking him beneath his arm. Poe's stomach groans at the movement. "Rey's awake now too, I can feel her humming."

Finn's Force sensitivity, insofar, appears to work like General Organa's. (The existence of which, Poe supposes, he wouldn't be at all aware of if he hadn't grown up watching her interact with the tree in his backyard.) Like Rey, Finn can always sense when someone with the Force is nearby, can feel the presences of his loved ones radiating out to him. He describes Rey as a beacon, which doesn't surprise Poe. Rey _is_ a beacon. Rey is incandescent.

("What about me?" Poe asked when Finn mentioned Rey's Force aura for the first time. "Can you feel me?"

He'd expected an apologetic smile, or for Finn's mouth to turn down at the edges as he shook his head - in his thirty-two years, gravity is still the most powerful force Poe has encountered. But instead Finn had nodded. "Yeah. Not quite as much, I think it might be residual from that tree you told us about? But you're there. You're smaller, but you're steady. Rey is bright but she flickers a lot. You're like .... you're like when you're coming back from ground patrol and you can see the lights of the base in the distance, and even when you know you still have a ways to walk, it's comforting because you can see home waiting for you."

Poe had swallowed hard, preemptive disappointment melting away. "Oh," he'd said, because anything else and he might have cried.)

Rey is sitting up in bed, waiting for them, her eyes sympathetic. "Did you dream about him?" she asks, propping pillows against the headboard as Poe eases onto the bed, one hand bracing his stomach.

He settles back, wincing a little as his stomach twinges, and he nods. Rey moves closer, laces her fingers in his. On his other side, Finn does the same.

"I do too," says Rey. "Some nights worse than others. Sometimes I can still feel his .... his _fingers_ in my brain. Rummaging around."

Finn presses against his shoulder and slips a warm hand under Poe's undershirt, gentle against his slightly swollen belly. "My nightmares are about Phasma. She lines up my old squadron, has me shoot them one by one or she'll kill the two of you."

Poe shudders a little against him. Something else he has not adjusted to: the nonchalant tone Finn and Rey both use to describe things (real events or dreams - Poe doesn't discriminate, they're equally disturbing) that, to any ordinary person, would sound like exactly that - nightmares.

Rey lays her head on his other shoulder. "We know how awful it is. Tell us when it happens. We can help each other."

Poe tilts his head so that it's resting on hers, squeezing her hand. "I will."

"How do you feel now?" Finn asks, thumbing at Poe's belly. "You ate a lot."

Poe smiles wryly. "It happens sometimes. It helps."

Rey cocks her head. "Does it?"

"Yeah, kinda. Takes my mind off the dreams." He snuggles closer to them. "But this helps too. I'd rather do this part."

Rey stretches out to lie beside him, sliding her hand under his shirt. She grazes Finn's fingers with her own, and they grin at each other over Poe. Poe grins too, watching them, soaking up their warmth, their goodness.

Rey splays her hand across his stomach, presses a little. “Does that hurt?” she asks.

“If you keep pressing it will. But like that is okay.”

She carefully skims over his skin, her hand bumping Finn’s as he does the same. Poe stiffens a little, still vaguely embarrassed that they’re witnessing him like this. But as their hands move over him, he lets himself loosen, lulled by the heat of their bodies against his. They won’t think less of him for this, he thinks. They’ll be gentle with him.

His stomach growls, and Rey’s forehead pinches at the sound. “You’re not still hungry,” she says, like she isn’t sure if it should be a question.

He laughs a little. “No, the opposite. That’s a _hey, you’re too full_ kind of noise.”

She glances at Finn as if for confirmation that such noises exist, and he gives an acceding sort of nod. She nods too, and he can see her rolling it around in her head, accepting it.

“And rubbing helps?” Finn asks. “We don't want to make it worse.”

“Yeah, it helps.”  He shifts against them, easing out a soft burp with the movement. “Moves everything around.”

Rey wrinkles her nose at that, but she pushes up his shirt for a better look, examining his stomach where it pushes out into a little mound over his waistband. She puts both hands on its underside, thumbing at the dark trail of hair that winds down from his navel, then leans down and presses a soft kiss to his skin.

Poe lets out a pleasantly surprised little sound, and Rey looks up. “Is that okay?”

“Yeah,” he says, smiling. “That’s good.” 

Finn nudges Rey over to press his own lips against Poe’s stomach. This isn't new - Finn likes to come up behind him and follow the curve of his waist, his belly, his hips, with his hands, while Rey is fond of falling asleep with her hand clutched around a handful of his side - but it's never happened while he's stuffed with ice cream, either, and he's more than a little relieved that they still find him lovable in this pitiful state.

“Thanks for taking care of me," he says, shifting to kiss Finn's shoulder, then Rey's. "I’m going to try to get better about this.”

“Hey,” says Finn, nudging his face against Poe’s. “You move forward at your own speed. That’s what everyone here keeps telling me. If it takes you a while, well, it’s taking us a while too. Maybe we’re moving slowly, but we’re still moving.”

This settles him in a way he can't quite describe, something like a heavy click in his chest, a recognition. “Thank you,” he murmurs, and Finn leans to kiss him.

They're quiet for a while, Finn lazily rubbing circles into Poe’s stomach, Rey's technique closer to that of a windshield wiper. They alternate kisses, sinking him further into a pleasant doze. Finn kisses up and down his neck, his jawline, as Rey is mouthing at the underside of his belly, leaving sloppy kisses in her wake as she plays with the pudge at his sides, where it's just starting to settle into a little roll when he sits. He feels more centered, more at ease than he can remember feeling in months.

He wakes up to find Finn draped over his shoulder, one arm thrown across Poe’s body protectively. Rey is asleep on his stomach, mouth open, her head rising and falling with his breathing. One of her hands is laced through one of Finn's; the other is bunched in the fabric of Poe’s t-shirt.

He surveys them, his heart feeling too large for his body. For a moment, he understands exactly what Finn is talking about, being able to feel the people you love in a warm golden glow, and in the space of that moment, that feeling is stronger than gravity.

  


**Author's Note:**

> so i'm kind of planning a fic that's the other side of this coin? stay tuned & come visit me on [tumblr](http://www.alittlepudge-neverhurtnobody.tumblr.com) to talk more about this sort of thing~~


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